Arktis

HA Schult is the first major environmental artist and has been travelling around the world with his collection of trash people since 1996. They are now installed on the ice at Longyerarbyen, Norway.

The trash people stood on the red square in Moscow, in front of the Egyptian pyramis, the Great Wall in China, as well as on the Piazza del Popolo in Rome and La Grande Arche in Paris, as a mirror image of the trash epoch.

Since autumn 2010 the trash people overwinted in their containers at the shore of Svalbard.
Now they are installed by HA Schult and native helpers on the not any longer eternal ice of Arctic at Longyerarbyen, one of the most inhabited places.

Here, 78º 13’N 15º 33′ E, the trash people try to resist the -35ºC icy arctic storms from March 14 till March 20, 2011.

«The ocean is the largest dumping ground on our planet. The consumers era is compelling its wildest flowers under its surface to blossom. The heart of the oceans beats in the arctic. The pulse of the ocean’s currents is orchestrated by it from there. The Trash People are images of ourselves. We produce trash and we will become trash. Today’s Coca-Cola bottle is the Roman archeologist found of tomorrow», Ha Schult says.

more pictures here

publication in the Welt am Sonntag and El País